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Regalingualius posted:I forget... If you buy the weapon/armor pack DLCs in 2, do they carry over into 3? No, you don't keep those items, but AFAIK almost all of them are included in vanilla 3 and you can find them at some point.
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May 7, 2013 21:35
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| # ? May 28, 2024 08:01 |
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From a couple of pages ago but I wanted to point out this about Arrival: 1) The plot of Arrival is a repeat of ME1's basic plot except crammed into 1/20th as much time 2) It was still more meaningful than ME2's main plot arc
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May 7, 2013 21:43
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Zoran posted:No, you don't keep those items, but AFAIK almost all of them are included in vanilla 3 and you can find them at some point. Well, you find them later on in the game, you don't start with the most powerful weapons like you do if you start a game of ME2 with the weapon pack DLCs. But I think that the ME3 weapon packs are pretty cheap and also well worth it. They include different weapons from what you had in ME2, some of which are pretty unique and powerful (an assault rifle that's basically a plasma gun, a shotgun that's really a grenade launcher, an SMG that fires an armor-piercing bullet every third round, etc).
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May 7, 2013 21:45
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Ahh. So might as well save the spare points I've got, then. Really, that's my only complaint with Bioware's DLC system; instead of at least giving the option to buy direct for PC versions, they had to go and set up a carnie-tickets style of buying that nearly always leaves you with some to spare (but never enough to, say, buy something beyond extra skins or gimmick weapons  ). And considering they're probably never going to do a re-released version of either the sequels that includes all of the DLC...
Regalingualius fucked around with this message at 21:47 on May 7, 2013 |
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May 7, 2013 21:45
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Regalingualius posted:Ahh. So might as well save the spare points I've got, then. I dunno, the ME3 weapon packs have some pretty cool stuff in them. If you've got nothing else to spend the points on, I'd honestly recommend them.
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May 7, 2013 22:03
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Fag Boy Jim posted:I love RPGs, but it's some unhealthy obsession with RPG mechanics if you think that going from a lovely RPG to a good shooter wasn't an improvement. Seriously. I will never loving understand those lunatics who like having to throw a fuckload of points into using a weapon just so their Special Ops space soldier can be sure of hitting something instead of spending them all on a variety of crazy fun abilities instead. Or that whole cretinous "I NEED LOOT MUST HAVE LOOT FROM EVERY CORPSE, EVERY CRATE" crap, ugh. Leave all that poo poo in the past where it belongs.
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May 7, 2013 22:16
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I don't mind loot if it's implemented well, but in 99% of RPG's it amounts to "shield Y has 12 armor but shield X has 13 armor,  I feel like I am in control of this game because I can manage my equipment!" Most people do not find that enjoyable. In ME3 all the guns have different behaviors and there's very little overlap between models, and the mods actually make substantive changes to how they behave. THAT is how you do loot and equipment.
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May 7, 2013 22:27
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1st AD posted:I don't mind loot if it's implemented well, but in 99% of RPG's it amounts to "shield Y has 12 armor but shield X has 13 armor, Or worse: "Gauntlet Y has 12 armor, +4 to HP, +5% to all elemental resistance and +2.4 to attack rating, but Gauntlet Z has 10 armor, +6% chance to evade, +3% to fire damage, 10% fire and semen resistance, and +3 to fortitude rolls. Plus it synergizes with your helmet of chode-busting, giving you a +5% magic item find chance for completing 31% of the set!" I'll never understand the person who thinks "I'm so happy I found this!" Doing away with loot was the coolest thing that ME2 did and I could not be happier with their choice. I wish more games would follow suit and have equipment have differences that you can actually notice instead of just comparing loads of numbers.
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May 7, 2013 22:36
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Yeah this was the reason I quit Dragon Age after 2 hours, it was just FULL of poo poo like that and you had too many armor options to play with.
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May 7, 2013 22:39
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1st AD posted:I don't mind loot if it's implemented well, but in 99% of RPG's it amounts to "shield Y has 12 armor but shield X has 13 armor, I don't actually mind this but you've got to limit the amount of equipment that rolls in. ME1 had you getting a new piece of equipment every 30 seconds and then it's no longer an exciting prospect to upgrade.
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May 7, 2013 23:02
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Good RPGs use the buttloads of stats available on items to allow for and suggest different playstyles. A classic example would be the "increase all damage inflicted AND received" effect: you see it and go 'ooh, I can use it to make a nimble assassin that dies to a stiff breeze but can kill enemies before they can manage to land a hit', and that's something new that you probably would have had a lot of trouble doing before. Newer players might not have even thought about the concept before. Bad RPGs use a buttload of stats to dazzle with numbers and Skinner box effect. A good hint that this is happening is when players whip out the Excel macros and automatically determine which items / abilities combinations are just straight-up more efficient for anyone. (I used "RPGs" for brevity but of course it applies to any game with lots of "equip" options, be they strategy games, MOBAs, shooters, etc.)
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May 7, 2013 23:04
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ME1 went with the really boring option of having one best item in every gun class, but what lots of people don't ever realize is that there's also (unfortunately) One Best Armor. Sure, Predator L X has 450 shields to Light Colossus's 375, but the difference between the former's 30% damage reduction and the latter's 65% is staggering. Colossus armor takes exactly half the damage that Predator L does. The same thing happens with the heavier versions: Predator H has 58% DR and 540 shields, Colossus X takes half that damage with 79% DR and 450 shields.
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May 7, 2013 23:12
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ME1 also gave you huge amounts of equipment AND a set-limit on how much you could carry, so you'd suddenly find yourself having to click,"Okay I get it I'm nearing the 150 cap" on every single new piece of equipment you got. I'm sure many people just hit the "take all" button so they could continue playing the game, so having to click through each item and then take the time to go through your inventory of mostly useless equipment to convert to omnigel was a pain. Plus your omni-gel capped out at 99, so you really needed to sell that stuff which you couldn't do till you were back on the Normandy or flew to the nearest planet with a merchant.
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May 7, 2013 23:19
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Jerusalem posted:ME1 also gave you huge amounts of equipment AND a set-limit on how much you could carry, so you'd suddenly find yourself having to click,"Okay I get it I'm nearing the 150 cap" on every single new piece of equipment you got. I'm sure many people just hit the "take all" button so they could continue playing the game, so having to click through each item and then take the time to go through your inventory of mostly useless equipment to convert to omnigel was a pain. Plus your omni-gel capped out at 99, so you really needed to sell that stuff which you couldn't do till you were back on the Normandy or flew to the nearest planet with a merchant. This was bad design but should only happen on your first playthrough, and only partway through. Once you learn that you need to manage inventory, you should be able to. It's still the one bad aspect of ME1 as opposed to the other games. But ME1 is a RPG and the other two are shooters.
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May 7, 2013 23:31
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There's no way to avoid it though because killing enemies means automatic loot and no matter what you're forced to omni-gel or sell things you don't want. ME1 could easily be 20% shorter if you didn't have to constantly do this.
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May 7, 2013 23:33
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I just made it a point to visit the basement of the Normandy between every mission to sell my excess junk (every 2-3 for uncharted planets, on playthroughs where I cared about them). It seems to work out ok. Still tedious, but less tedious than bumping into the item cap halfway through a mission.
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May 7, 2013 23:40
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Zoran posted:ME1 went with the really boring option of having one best item in every gun class, but what lots of people don't ever realize is that there's also (unfortunately) One Best Armor. Sure, Predator L X has 450 shields to Light Colossus's 375, but the difference between the former's 30% damage reduction and the latter's 65% is staggering. Colossus armor takes exactly half the damage that Predator L does. Not that it's a big deal because you would just pick armor based on which one looked coolest anyway. So everybody would always pick the Colossus armor anyway 
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May 8, 2013 02:12
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Burning Mustache posted:Not that it's a big deal because you would just pick armor based on which one looked coolest anyway. Or the dumbest. Which is arguably the only thing I seriously missed, and pined for, when I moved on to ME2. Suddenly, the only character I could turn into a glittery space homo was Shepard. Where are my choices, Bioware. 
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May 8, 2013 02:59
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An Old Boot posted:Or the dumbest. If anything, Bioware pre-supplied the 'dumbest' costume for several characters (Jack, Miranda, almost everyone's face masks when they wore them...) Side note, but Samara's costume would honestly be so loving good if they just zipped it up. Same with Catwoman's in Arkham City I guess as well.
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May 8, 2013 03:06
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Mazerunner posted:If anything, Bioware pre-supplied the 'dumbest' costume for several characters (Jack, Miranda, almost everyone's face masks when they wore them...) The "wear nothing but face masks in a vacuum" thing will never not be confounding. re: Samara, I was a little more okay with the get-up when I switched the outfit over to black, but, uh, yeah. At this point, I just figure that boob windows are part and parcel with the game in general. It's hard to stay irritated by it, even if it does look like a recipe for disaster if you're running around being a totally righteous hero. It's the liberal use of high heels that honestly still cracks me up to this day. Testament to even more badassery if you can run around in those things, though, or... something. I guess.
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May 8, 2013 03:29
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If you ever play a color-coded loot simulator like Diablo, Torchlight, Amalur, whatever - you can see that while the ME1 style of "lots of loot!" can work, it failed in ME1 for two main reasons: -too many drops too often (there's a balance to how often you should get items, and ME1 didn't have any) -not enough differentiation between items (key here is that you only had a few slots to customize and the stat changes were completely marginal, whereas in real loot simulators you have like 10 armor/rings/necklace/boots/etc slots PLUS set bonuses and gem socketing and whatever else) so it basically combined the worst aspects of loot drops into a cohesive Bad Idea. I'm not saying I want ME4 to be a color-coded loot simulator, though god knows with the number of guns they added in ME3 they could probably do it. But I think it's important to keep in mind lots of loot isn't inherently terrible, it's just a huge mismatch to Mass Effect AND was done really badly to boot.
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May 8, 2013 03:35
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Jerusalem posted:ME1 also gave you huge amounts of equipment AND a set-limit on how much you could carry, so you'd suddenly find yourself having to click,"Okay I get it I'm nearing the 150 cap" on every single new piece of equipment you got. I'm sure many people just hit the "take all" button so they could continue playing the game, so having to click through each item and then take the time to go through your inventory of mostly useless equipment to convert to omnigel was a pain. Plus your omni-gel capped out at 99, so you really needed to sell that stuff which you couldn't do till you were back on the Normandy or flew to the nearest planet with a merchant. My  favorite experiences were finding myself at having 150 items because I kept clicking "sure, whatever" at the loot prompts, then being forced to turn the Human/Krogan/Turian Colossus X armor into omnigel because I had no more room in my inventory.
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May 8, 2013 03:37
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I think something similar to what's in Defiance could work. There are a bunch of weapon types (SMG, LMG, pistol, semi-automatic sniper rifle, grenade launcher, etc.) and each weapon type has a handful of subclasses (e.g. SMGs has a longer ranger variant, a shorter range one, and a very high RoF/recoil one). Weapons can get mods such as quicker reload, less spread, etc., and you can equip a stock, scope, magazine, and barrel.
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May 8, 2013 03:38
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Ainsley McTree posted:I just made it a point to visit the basement of the Normandy between every mission to sell my excess junk (every 2-3 for uncharted planets, on playthroughs where I cared about them). It seems to work out ok. If you aren't medigel-ing everything by midgame you're doing it wrong because you should be so flush with money you don't need to worry about it anymore.
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May 8, 2013 04:05
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Burning Mustache posted:Not that it's a big deal because you would just pick armor based on which one looked coolest anyway. Colossus armor looks dumb. It would look cool if it was all black, but it's not. The shade of red they used was really ugly. Predator L/M/H all day every day.
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May 8, 2013 09:40
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Onyx X N7 for life, yo, poo poo's iconic. You see that, you know the Butcher of Torfan is coming to gently caress up your day.
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May 8, 2013 11:23
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Oh, I hated every single thing about the loot system of ME1. It was bloated, filled with stats that the game never really explains, and stuffed with identical-beyond-numbers equipment/weapons, tedious to sort through, made no sense for the setting, and was eventually made irrelevant when you got the clear "best" gear while still getting assaulted by trash that you had no use for (especially considering how easy it was to max out your money and omnigel). Despite that, it wasn't the worst thing in ME1. The worst thing was the ridiculous leveling system. You could pump in points for a single percentage of extra damage or hardening (whatever that meant) over the game that made level ups a chore instead of an accomplishment. Worse, your guns were absolutely useless without spending points because your special forces soldier somehow never learned to shoot straight before this mission but still decided that s/he (and all his/her crew members) needed to lug around every weapon even if they'll never be able to hit someone at point blank range with them. Don't get me started on how the game forced you to keep up three different lock-picking skills to get anything done. I could forgive all of that if the actual gameplay was good and responsive, but ME1 was neither. Cutting all of the micromanaging, numbers-for-the-sake-of-numbers approach to RPG elements and improving the shooting was the best thing they could have ever done for the series. I'll never understand why some people complain about Bioware streamlining this sort of thing out of their RPGs beyond attachment to them for pure tradition's sake. I like RPGs and all, but I'm not sad about losing the annoying micromanagment; it doesn't add to the strategy, it just adds more busywork. Like Fag Boy Jim said, I'd gladly take a good shooter over a bad RPG.
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May 8, 2013 11:49
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And, alas, the Phoenix Armor Battalion never returned. EDIT: All joking aside, after playing some old-school RPGs again, I am pretty grateful for ME2's system of doing things. I don't know how anyone in their right mind would want to resurrect that entire formula without making some serious tweaks, it was just something that I'd gotten used to over eons of playing stilted, stat-and-loot-heavy +grind-all-the-drat-time RPGs. Old Boot fucked around with this message at 12:48 on May 8, 2013 |
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May 8, 2013 12:28
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Elysiume posted:I think something similar to what's in Defiance could work. There are a bunch of weapon types (SMG, LMG, pistol, semi-automatic sniper rifle, grenade launcher, etc.) and each weapon type has a handful of subclasses (e.g. SMGs has a longer ranger variant, a shorter range one, and a very high RoF/recoil one). Weapons can get mods such as quicker reload, less spread, etc., and you can equip a stock, scope, magazine, and barrel. I think the ME3 weapons/weapon mods system is about perfect, really.
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May 8, 2013 12:41
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Fangz posted:I think the ME3 weapons/weapon mods system is about perfect, really.
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May 8, 2013 16:29
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Burning Mustache posted:So everybody would always pick the Colossus armor anyway Nawh mang, it's all about rolling Predator urban camo all day, everyday (except throwing on the jungle camo version specifically for Virmire)  I really liked that ME2 and 3 carried over the camo patterns, though it was a bummer that old school Onyx wasn't available.
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May 8, 2013 18:48
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Lycus posted:The mod system could've used more variety. For one thing, I kinda think they should've taken the ammo powers away from the classes and turned them back into mods. I can understand having one (ME1) or the other (ME2), but having both simultaneously seemed weird. Well in multiplayer you basically have gear options that do exactly that. So I guess just make a SP game based on MP 
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May 8, 2013 19:50
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I have to agree, my biggest beef with the mechanical changes between 1 and 2&3 was the ammo powers. Especially when some instances required using a squadmate's power which gave you reduced effectiveness. My Engineer liked her Inferno rounds dammit.
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May 8, 2013 20:00
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Given what they did to MP, I think they might have been looking at bringing back ammo mods, but since ME3 imported the powers of ME2 characters, they were kind of stuck with the skills they had.
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May 8, 2013 20:05
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Did they remove the incendiary evolution that made some shots explosive in 3? I loved that effect, storming the Collector base with Grunt and Zaeed and everyone on Mattocks with Inferno was so badass - enemies would start exploding the moment they appeared on screen.
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May 8, 2013 20:07
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I think the option is still there, but it's at rank 6 instead of rank 4.
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May 8, 2013 20:12
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Lycus posted:The mod system could've used more variety. For one thing, I kinda think they should've taken the ammo powers away from the classes and turned them back into mods. I can understand having one (ME1) or the other (ME2), but having both simultaneously seemed weird. I dunno, I can see the advantages of the class ammo powers system: 1. Easier to change on the fly during battle, since you can't change equipment where-ever you want. 2. Ties into the upgrade tree idea for the skill trees, so you can give the player mutually exclusive options 3. Forces the player to make some sacrifices and not just have whatever they want
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May 8, 2013 20:32
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4. Gives soldiers something to spend points on.
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May 8, 2013 22:28
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Ammo powers were boring as poo poo, passive powers which you still had to manually turn them on for each weapon at the start of every mission. Also every party member with any weapon skills had one so the whole "squad ammo" option was largely unnecessary.Geostomp posted:I could forgive all of that if the actual gameplay was good and responsive, but ME1 was neither. Cutting all of the micromanaging, numbers-for-the-sake-of-numbers approach to RPG elements and improving the shooting was the best thing they could have ever done for the series. I'll never understand why some people complain about Bioware streamlining this sort of thing out of their RPGs beyond attachment to them for pure tradition's sake. I like RPGs and all, but I'm not sad about losing the annoying micromanagment; it doesn't add to the strategy, it just adds more busywork. 1) Large environments instead of predesigned arenas (or, gods forbid, corridors). Approaching a new location with the Mako from the outside, spotting the enemy forces and planning your attack made it feel like a true space game, not just a decent FPS in sci-fi trappings. 2) Heat management > Ammo NihilCredo fucked around with this message at 23:19 on May 8, 2013 |
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May 8, 2013 23:15
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E: ^^^ You forgot how much better the Citadel is in ME1. It actually feels like a place rather than...well, whatever they did in the next two games. Why does EDI sit with her legs crossed in the cabin?
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May 9, 2013 01:10
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